Disrespectful and Dismissive.

[Hatstand]

snip

Laria, looking at the live letter I’m struggling to see how you’re justifying your claims. They say that they recognise that there’s a problemwith NIN and that they haven’t fixed it yet because of the way the moves are interacting and they expect to have a fix out in 1.0. It seems quite a stretch to say that they intend to do the same thing with healers when they had many opportunities to mention it but didn’t. If SE had plans to give AST some shiny new toys don’t you think that they might have thrown it in on the AST question to take the edge off? If they had something for SCH don’t you think they might have mentioned it in the tooltip question? There were plenty of other questions where they teased something tangentially related in their answer. Instead they told us that they had no plans to change AST cards and we got radio silence on everything else.

Fine tuning NIN’s dps kit is something SE has been doing regularly for years. Adding to SCH’s dps kit without simultaneously gutting it is something they’ve literally never done. I just don’t see your argument.

As for the changes they’ve made so far, I was optimistic after patch 5.05, too, but then the live letter killed that for me. It’s obvious that there is discontent in the healing community and yet we’re the only role that didn’t receive assurances that they’re still working on addressing our concerns. Given that, it seems more likely that they think they’ve done enough and plan to leave it be except for maybe a potency fix or two. Personally, if they tell us that they’re working on something, and give an indication that it involves more offensive abilities and is meant to directly address the downtime problem, I would not be nearly so up in arms. Until then, here I am.

I’m glad you and your friends are enjoying healing, and I agree that AST numbers will probably go up. I doubt they’ll become even with the other healers but I think there will be some players (not necessarily a majority) who held off because they felt the class wasn’t powerful enough, and while a lot of those would probably go for one of the other classes which still seem more powerful I’m sure some of them will switch. However...

It seems like with this change they’ve made AST (and to a lesser extent SCH) accessible to people who previously didn’t like that style of healing, but already liked another. On the flip side you have AST players who loved AST for its unique style, who now have no other class to turn to. Personally, I think it’s more important for those people to get their favourite class back than for others to have a second option.

[Lagomorph]

I expect people to have a minimum ability to understand context. Why would I bring up ninja in a discussion about healers? It's merely an example that shows that Squeenix is now willing to do major changes to jobs in the middle of SHB.

I can't believe we're still talking about this, but here we go. You opened your statement off with "given their track record." If I am not mistaken, track record refers to their past behavior right? Next you go on to talk about the future (5.1) and ninja changes. You also expect people to know that they're supposed to ignore the first sentence where you reference past behavior. Unoftunately I was not able to deduce from your post that the first sentence was intended to be ignored, so I responded and by talking about their track record. It seems to me that you have a consistent probblem of meaning something slightly different from what you actually post. You seem like a pretty smart fellow, I suggest you use more precise language instead if you're going to expect people to understand your posts at such a deep level.

It'd be nice if you didn't ignore every single post of clarification on that statement. I've said repeatedly in the latest posts that it's not a statement of fact, but one based on observation. But you keep clinging to that one statement several pages later because, I assume, it's easier for you. So let me rephrase it for you.

"Given SE's observable behavior in the recent past: if they restore Bane, Miasma, Shadowflare, then it is extremely unlikely that they will give us anything better in the future".

I'm curious to know what you understood so far about my point. What is the most crucial point I am making? Please relay it to me so that we can discuss it and so that we can stop wasting time on this.

Let's go back a bit. Here, I'll do it for you.

Let me put it this way. The existence of Bane, Miasma, Shadowflare today would preclude the existence of anything better than that in the future.

I do not see how this is the case. Would you elaborate on why you think this is true?

Remember these two? This was our first interaction in this thread. It was the the reason we started replying to each other. And here we are still, talking only because of this one statement. In the context of this conversation and why we are having it, I would say this is pretty important. Anyways, let me break this down for you and make it really simple:

Scenario A:
Scholar gets bane, shadowflare, miasma back in the near future.

Scenario B:
Scholar get new damaging abilities that interact with the fairy gauge in 6.0.

You think that these to scenarios are mutually exclusive, or at least in your latest revision to it, are extremely likely to be mutually exclusive. Why do you think this? To my understanding you said that the way SE has behaved in the past suggest that these two events have to be mutually exclusive. Why is explanation unsatisfactory to me? For starters, I need to see some examples of recent behavior from SE and why it implies that these two events are mutually exclusive. Saying that "SE does not want healers to have too many damaging abilities" doesn't work, and I will go over why shortly.

Here is my case: these two scenarios have no reason to be mutually exclusive. Healers can get some abilities back in an upcoming patch, and still get the interesting abilities that you've said many times that you want with the caveat being that the abilities we get back in patch 5.x need to be removed in 6.0. Why do I think this? Here is a list:

-Introducing new abilities will cost virtually no development resources because the abilities already exist.
-Similarly, deleting abilities when the time comes takes no effort at all.
-Balancing healers with more damaging abilities is in the order of what a middle school math student would be capable of (i.e. can we make 22 broils and 2 biolysis per minute equal to 20 broils, 2 maisma, 2 biolysis, and 1 shadow flare per minute?)
-The amount of dps spells that SE wants us to have or not have is irrelevant here. You can say that SE doesn't want us to have too many damaging abilities. Ok, I can agree with that. I don't agree that it has anything to do with 5.x abilities preventing new abilities. Suppose that we got miasma and shadow flare back. Now suppose that these abilities are deleted in 6.0 and we get two new better designed abilities in their place. The total amount of damaging abilities in 6.0 did not change. All that changed here was how much we had in shadowbringers. Keeping in mind that anything that SE gives us back to keep us satisfied for the next 2 years of 5.x can be removed again in 6.0, there is no reason to believe that getting any abilities back should prevent us from getting new stuff in next expansion.

Interesting. I don't take it as "we don't want healers to DPS", but I am curious where they will take it.

I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but I think we can both agree that this statement clearly does not mean that SE wants healers to be dpsing nearly full-time like we are. If we are to also assume that it does not mean that they don't want us dealing damage, then what are we left with? Something along the lines of "we want healers to dps, but just enough. Not too much, and not too little." Somehow, I'm just not seeing it.

I disagree that SCH is boring in 5.05.

Not going to argue with what is subjective. I'll just say that many people here agree that sch is a lot less fun to play than its previous iterations.

I think it's more likely that they will listen to the players, which is why I want to ask for something new.
Getting Energy Drain back was a direct response to player feedback. The MP reduction on AoW was a direct response to player feedback (to 600 as some have suggested here).
AST was in a rough spot healing wise and they fixed that, but they didn't have to reduce Divination cooldown (to the 2 minutes suggested by many AST players) or improve Sleeve Draw. That is another direct response to player feedback.
If you read the forums enough, you'll be able to relate some of the changes to the posts here.

Why do you think that scenario is most likely?

You're right about that. Many of the changes seemed to be the direct result of community feedback. The reason I believe what I said in my previous post is because I don't believe that all feedback is valued or even considered. This is largely because in the live letter, they didn't say anything important regarding healers other than telling astros to deal with the boring cards. There were dozens of posts with far more likes on them than the other ones addressed in the live letter. When the live letter ignores all but one healer post and yet still manages to answer the question "yoshi-p, what is your favorite character" then I'm willing to make the leap and say that they just do not care about us healers in the slightest. Similarly, the fact that they even allowed healers to be released in the state that they are in during the 5.0 launch leads me to believe that they do not know what they are doing. This is just what I believe, not what I want to be true. If by some miracle a dev read this post and corrected me by telling me that they're hard at work fixing the healers and they hear the community complaints I would be overjoyed; I think a lot of other people would be too.

[Stamps]

Just going to add in my thought to the discussion, having now put in 16hrs into Savage.

If I didn't have a co-healer who was happy DPSing the majority of the time, I'd be pretty bored playing Sch. The fights are fun; healing is fun, when my Whm partner offers only oGCDs heal for most phases; dpsing is extremely boring.

The healing requirements in savage are not high enough to warrant both healers spending a good amount of time on healing, outside of a couple of 20-30 seconds window in each fight. My group hasn't even begun to optimize the fights (and still eat their fair share of mechanics), so the window of required healing is only going to grow smaller as time goes on. Maybe E4S is where they ramp up the healing required, haven't seen it yet.

The times I was most bored were when no healing was required, or HoTs were taking care of it, and I was forced to spam broil. The first ~35 seconds of Leviathan, for example, have me playing with one finger, outside of the opener, because there's nothing to do but spam broil. It's riveting stuff, pressing that 1 button over and over again. Sometimes I'll even optimize and weave in an energy drain when movement is required or aether is about to come back, just to be a real clever boy.

So it was really disappointing to read the live letter and see no further changes were announced, and most of the issues not even addressed. SE either need to make more consistent damage (which won't fit well with our healing skills currently) or figure out how to make healer DPS interesting.

I dread farming in a couple of weeks, going to be bored out of my skull.

[LariaKirin]

I can't believe we're still talking about this, but here we go. [...]

No, you're not supposed to ignore the first part. You are supposed to look and read what it is reply to. It is in reply to your post containing: "There is no reason that these abilities couldn't have been removed only when their suitable replacements were ready."

The reason is that "given their track record, deleting and replacing with new skills is not something they're going to do outside of a rework", to quote myself. That is the purpose of that statement. Then the second part references the liveletter, because if they're willing to do it with Ninja, they just might be willing to do it with Scholar.

The consistent problem is that you're isolating statements that make it easy for you to respond to in a vacuum and conveniently ignoring everything that was said in the overall conversation.

Let's go back a bit. Here, I'll do it for you.

And my reply to that was "Because SE has quite obviously stated through action that healers will not get many DPS buttons. So if we do get any DPS actions, I think we all want them to be more interesting than Miasma or Shadowflare. Ideally, involving the fairy gauge."

It is not a statement based on fact, but on observation, as I've clarified multiple times. Unless of course you take that statement in a vacuum.

You can't just insert yourself in the middle of a conversation ignore what was said beforehand or even in reply to yourself. Here you are, several pages later, still trying to convince me it's a statement of fact.


And this is my last response regarding these two things above. I refuse to waste more time repeating myself because you've shown me that you will continue to focus on as single statement and ignore the entire context around it.

Scenario A:
Scholar gets bane, shadowflare, miasma back in the near future.

Scenario B:
Scholar get new damaging abilities that interact with the fairy gauge in 6.0.

[...]

6.0 is not something I ever said, but something you inserted on your own. I did not say "near future" so I guess that would be a legit complaint, but I thought it would be clear enough from the context of other things I've said (e.g. 5.1 changes, Player feedback - which does not really exist between expansions. They have their design, then feedback comes after).

The two scenarios are:
1. Scholar gets Bane, Shadowflare, Miasma back in the near future.
2. Scholar gets new abilities in the near future.

These are the two I think are mutually exclusive, because SE does not want us to have many damaging abilities. Given the trend of removing damaging abilities one after the other, I do not think there's any chance of getting them both.

As for 6.0, they very well could be doing (1) in 5.X and then reverting (1) in order to do (2) in 6.0. I think this is also very unlikely, because if SCH gets old stuff back they will have to address the other healers as well and start a new round of balancing. They've managed to balance the healers well in 5.05 because these abilities are gone.

The most important thing, which was in my original post talking about SCH abilities is this:
What I don't want is for them to think we want (1) and decide to not give us (2).
Even if no changes are coming in 5.X, I want them to know that we want something more interesting than (1).

I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but I think we can both agree that this statement clearly does not mean that SE wants healers to be dpsing nearly full-time like we are. If we are to also assume that it does not mean that they don't want us dealing damage, then what are we left with? Something along the lines of "we want healers to dps, but just enough. Not too much, and not too little." Somehow, I'm just not seeing it.

Yes. What I think they have a problem with is sacrificing healing in favor of DPS (Energy Drain being one of the biggest offenders). I don't think they can fix this because it's the nature of optimization.

You're right about that. Many of the changes seemed to be the direct result of community feedback. [...]

I can see them not valuing every piece of feedback, but I'm pretty sure they consider all of it. Energy Drain and MP reduction on AoW were one of the most requested, but that's not immediately obvious by looking at just a few posts.

This is not a community-developed game. It's a Square Enix developed game. I think expecting them to address every single feedback is unreasonable and I don't expect them to implement feedback that conflicts with their planned design/vision.

Balancing healers with more damaging abilities is in the order of what a middle school math student would be capable of (i.e. can we make 22 broils and 2 biolysis per minute equal to 20 broils, 2 maisma, 2 biolysis, and 1 shadow flare per minute?)

Yeah, it's easy to balance SCH with SCH. It's not so easy to balance SCH with AST with WHM. If you think it's that simple, then please take 4.55 healers and tell us what easy changes need to be made to balance them.

[tikiwiki]

Just going to add in my thought to the discussion, having now put in 16hrs into Savage.

If I didn't have a co-healer who was happy DPSing the majority of the time, I'd be pretty bored playing Sch. The fights are fun; healing is fun, when my Whm partner offers only oGCDs heal for most phases; dpsing is extremely boring.

The healing requirements in savage are not high enough to warrant both healers spending a good amount of time on healing, outside of a couple of 20-30 seconds window in each fight. My group hasn't even begun to optimize the fights (and still eat their fair share of mechanics), so the window of required healing is only going to grow smaller as time goes on. Maybe E4S is where they ramp up the healing required, haven't seen it yet.

The times I was most bored were when no healing was required, or HoTs were taking care of it, and I was forced to spam broil. The first ~35 seconds of Leviathan, for example, have me playing with one finger, outside of the opener, because there's nothing to do but spam broil. It's riveting stuff, pressing that 1 button over and over again. Sometimes I'll even optimize and weave in an energy drain when movement is required or aether is about to come back, just to be a real clever boy.

So it was really disappointing to read the live letter and see no further changes were announced, and most of the issues not even addressed. SE either need to make more consistent damage (which won't fit well with our healing skills currently) or figure out how to make healer DPS interesting.

I dread farming in a couple of weeks, going to be bored out of my skull.

so ive cleared the entire tier ive been pretty bored outside of prog for most of the tier since damage is so low the very end of titan is the highest damage out put from a boss weve had in a while though (but as we get more gear more of that phase will start to be skipped and become much easier), but the rest of the fight feels the same as the rest of the tier vast majority of both mine and my co healers time is spamming glare/broil

[tikiwiki]

The two scenarios are:
1. Scholar gets Bane, Shadowflare, Miasma back in the near future.
2. Scholar gets new abilities in the near future.

your second scenario seems really poorly thought out in stormblood we got a lot removed too and got nothing this expac we just got more removed, like asking for a simple return of skills is a really easy thing for se to do to improve the downtime situation

[LariaKirin]

[...]

I'm taking their willingness to change NIN in a major way as a sign that they're willing to do these kinds of changes post-launch. I'm not saying they will do the same with healers, but I'm not discounting it as a possibility.

As for them not answering healer questions, I don't know the reasons. I personally think it's because they don't want to promise anything or because they want to avoid backlash before the patch. Healers do have a tendency to explode on the forums more than the other roles (see pre-SHB).

They have nothing to gut in terms of DPS, they can only add now. So if I offer feedback, I am going to ask for new abilities that have more interesting interactions. First, because I think the old abilities were holding SCH back. Second, because I think it's unlikely that they will revert the balance they've achieved in 5.05. And third, I think it will be better received - saying that their changes are boring, bad and whatnot and asking for a complete revert comes of as salty to say the least.

I can't speak for my friends, but for myself: it's not about accessibility. The only thing putting me off from AST was the unreliability of the old card system.

My main point about AST is that it is no longer a liability to bring in your party. I've heard stories of ASTs being excluded from content or having their party leave from dungeons as soon as they go in. Hopefully that won't happen anymore, once people realize that it's no longer as weak as it was in 5.0 and it can now compete with the other healers. Community opinion matters alot too - if everyone says that AST is bad, then of course less people will play it.

[tikiwiki]

They have nothing to gut in terms of DPS, they can only add now. So if I offer feedback, I am going to ask for new abilities that have more interesting interactions. First, because I think the old abilities were holding SCH back. Second, because I think it's unlikely that they will revert the balance they've achieved in 5.05. And third, I think it will be better received - saying that their changes are boring, bad and whatnot and asking for a complete revert comes of as salty to say the least.

woah there bold of you to assume they cant cut one of our two main skills and that if they could make more interesting things they could have just done it they dont need to gut us down to nothing to give us things theyve added plenty to other classes without needing to gut them down to nothing look at how each expac paladin damage has become vastly more complicated than the 1-2-3 of arr

[Tweets]

Technically SCH had 4 DoTs in 4.X (Bio, Miasma, Shadow Flare, and Miasma II)... they also had Bane and Quickened Aetherflow (and Aetherflow out of combat) all of which added some interactivity to their kit and rewarded good play. So yes, 4.X was worse than 3.X, but even comparing 4.X to 5.0 (or 5.05) is far worse than simply losing 1 DoT.

While Shadowflare and Miasma II were both technically DoTs, I must make one distinction - "Rotation DoTs" and "Non-Rotation DoTs". Bio/Miasma were the former - You always wanted them active on all enemies. 4.X!Shadowflare was the latter as it was not something you managed but rather an oGCD DPS ability akin to Mug or Salted Earth - You don't watch the timer on it, you just use it when it's available. The damage is technically over-time so it's technically a DoT, but it doesn't fill the gameplay niche that DoTs traditionally have - IE a timer you need to watch and manage, which provides a bit more gameplay (even if only a little).

For the same reason, Miasma II would be in that "Non-Rotation DoT" category - On AoE the DoT was simply a bonus 25 potency on your 100-potency AoE if it ticked, and on ST the DoT was simply a way of forcing you not to double-weave too often. In neither case did you really want to keep the DoT up, though in the latter case the DoT definitely added some spice to the gameplay, just in the reverse to how Rotation DoTs do.

To conclude what I'm trying to say here, 4.X!Shadowflare can't be considered as a piece of gameplay, and as far as "DoT management" goes, 4.X!Miasma II couldn't either, though thankfully it provided equivalent gameplay consideration in another way.

The DoTs you have to actively manage (or as I often accidentally shorthand it without clarifying, "The DoTs you have") alone aren't the best way of showing the trend of the gameplay, but they closely mirror the rest of the 'gameplay nuggets' - They've been stripped away over time. The developers seem to intend to replace these 'nuggets' with healing, but have failed in every attempt, leaving the classes feeling devoid of engaging gameplay.

A saddening tale, to be sure.

[BUNNYisaac]

The responses I got from Novice Network when asking about how new players and mentors feel about healers were mind blowing. Either they are hardcore fanboys or they just don’t care about the lore. The moment they talked about drawing “useless cards” shows how utterly incompetent they are in adapting to the drawn cards and how to effectively use them. I’m extremely sad that the healer community is being neglected by these kinds of players, whilst their incompetence are being heard by the developers about how they don’t know how to use their skills properly. Also, Selene... WHY HAVE AN EXTRA FAERIE IF SHE DOESN'T BRING ANYTHING UNIQUE TO THE TABLE? Just for aesthetics they say... holy crap, their answers triggered the shit out of me, I left novice network.